Georgetown Alumni

: One of our favorite Welcome to the Neighborhood moments over the years! 💙 🐶

Join your fellow Hoya neighbors for and welcome our newest alumni: https://g.town/W2N2024

Happy first day of classes, Hoyas 💙 🩶

Tumor biology Ph.D. candidate Zoe Malchiodi (MS’19, G’24) has always been interested in the way tumors outsmart the body. Now she’s performing award-winning research on pancreatic cancer cells and the immune system.

Malchiodi was named a 2023-4 Matt Riddle Scholar recipient of the Metropolitan Washington Chapter of the Achievement Rewards for College Scientists Foundation. The $15,000 award will support her dissertation research and experiments performing novel spatial analyses of natural killer (NK) cells—the white blood cells involved in eliminating diseased cells—to assess gene expression in human pancreatic cancer samples.

Read more about Machiodi and how her mentor, Dr. Louis Weiner, guided her research ideas: https://g.town/3yY9OVL

Let's PAW-se and celebrate with our good boy, Jack the Bulldog 🐶💙

Welcome to the Hilltop, Class of 2028! 🎉 Our Summer Send-Offs, a nearly 30-year tradition at Georgetown, provide new students an opportunity to connect and meet their local Hoya community before they start in the fall. 🩶 💙

This summer, alumni around the globe joined in welcoming our newest Hoyas and their families to Georgetown. From Anchorage to Hong Kong and over 40 cities in between, nearly 1500 alumni, new students and families, and other friends of Georgetown came together to celebrate the new classes' journey to campus. 🌎

We deeply thank every Hoya who hosted or planned an event in their region and look forward to next summer with excitement.

📸: Summer Send-Offs in Clubs of Singapore, Philadelphia, India, Fairfield County, UK, San Francisco, Hawaii, Chicago, Cleveland, and Colorado

Georganne Vartorella, M.D. (C’73, M’82) and her husband, Richard Statesir, M.D., have made a landmark bequest commitment to establish the Vartorella-Statesir Endowed Scholarship Fund.

The scholarships will support students during all four undergraduate years, providing access for highly talented first-generation college students, as well as those from low-income and underrepresented backgrounds who might not otherwise be able to afford a Georgetown education.

“Rich and I have been in health care for three decades,” says Vartorella, a member of Georgetown’s Board of Regents and the McCourt Board of Advisors. “In many ways, recruiting a diverse student body is similar to optimizing the equitable delivery of health care. In both cases, to achieve your goals, you’ve got to remove the barriers to access. And I think that overcoming those barriers in education begins fundamentally with scholarships.”

Read more about this historic gift: https://g.town/3YQUMf9

Georgetown Health Magazine recently sat down with Michelle A. Roett (M’03), professor and chair of the Department of Family Medicine at Georgetown University Medical Center and MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, who established Georgetown’s Center for Health Equity to address education and training on eliminating health disparities in Washington, DC.

Roett is also medical director of the HOYA Clinic which was formed to impact better health outcomes throughout the city and is located at The Triumph, a short-term family housing program in Ward 8.

Read about what brought Roett to Georgetown, her motivations for opening the center in 2022, and future plans: https://g.town/4dQlSal

Rediscover Homecoming Weekend this fall. In partnership with the Georgetown University Farmers Market, we are excited to announce our first annual Homecoming Fall Fest, happening on Friday afternoon of Homecoming. Join fellow alumni, students, family, and friends as we celebrate the moments and experiences that make the Hilltop home!

When it comes to the Homecoming Tailgate, you asked, we listened. We’ve expanded our beverage options to include hard seltzers and cider, along with the traditional beer, and non-alcoholic beverages/soft drinks. The event will also feature new activities, giveaways, raffles, food, and more!

is September 20 - September 22, 2024 💙 🩶 Registration is now live, so don't wait—sign up today: https://g.town/4fOw598

On December 13, 1993 in the Gedo Region of Somalia, Ken Rutherford (G’87, G’00) almost died.

While working with a non-government organization in war-torn Somalia, the group he traveled with was headed out to a site when his vehicle passed over a hidden landmine.

“It is crazy how my near-death experience cleared out the noise,” Rutherford said. “Unlike most mine victims, I was lucky to be able to call for help on my hand-held radio.”

He’s now a professor at James Madison University and advocates for people with disabilities from landmine explosions around the world.

Explore Rutherford’s journey and how losing his legs helped him find his purpose: https://g.town/3YCtqcy

Welcome to the Neighborhood heads to 35+ cities around the world on September 12 🌍

Register today for and welcome our newest Hoyas to our alumni community 🏘️ https://g.town/W2N2024

Each year, roughly 60 Georgetown University School of Medicine students act as camp counselors for young participants connected to The Triumph, a short-term family housing organization in Washington, DC’s Ward 8 that has housed one of the HOYA Clinic locations since 2019.

The camp offers a chance for current medical students to step back from their studies and serve their communities, says Michael Covell (M’26), last year’s co-coordinator for HoyaMed Summer Sports Camp.

Read about the sports, activities, and the popular Egg Drop challenge at the camp: https://g.town/46KzB0b

Anupam Chakravarty’s (SFS’10, G’14) career path began in an unlikely place: his high school rock band.

Chakravarty, the senior director of digital channel strategy in the Office of Advancement (OA), played bass guitar, and found his passion for design and communications while promoting the band.

Learn more about how Anupam Chakravarty found his career path through activism and music, how he met his wife, and how he looks to create a better Georgetown and life through his work: https://g.town/4ciOubi

A new collaboration between Georgetown and Howard Universities offers a path toward health justice through the medical humanities. The Georgetown-Howard Center for Medical Humanities and Health Justice (MHHJ) focuses on reducing health disparities in Washington, DC, through leveraging methods of critical inquiry at the heart of the humanities. This creative partnership is developing a better understanding of the human condition to improve lives, health care training, and health outcomes.

In 2024-25 the focus is on lore–uncovering and understanding the collective, generational wisdom around health in the community.

“Medical humanities is a field that teaches us that health and health care do not begin and end in the clinic or at the hospital doors,” says Lakshmi Krishnan, co-executive director of the center and founding director of the Georgetown Medical Humanities Initiative. “Health touches every aspect of our lives, and the medical humanities help make meaning out of that.”

Read more about the power of lore: https://g.town/3X6Av45

Four Hoyas are headed to Paris to compete in the 2024 Summer Olympics taking place July 26-Aug. 11. The athletes in Georgetown University's Olympic cohort – three Georgetown Athletics student-athletes (one incoming first-year and two alumni), and one Georgetown Law alumnus – each represent different countries and will compete in different sports.

Brianna Jones (B’19, SCS’20) - Puerto Rico Women’s Basketball Team
Kirsten Kasper (B’13, SCS’14) - U.S. Triathlon Team
André Matias (L’19) - Angola Rowing Team
Jaden Marchan - Trinidad and Tobago’s Men’s 4x400m Relay Squad

Read more about the athletes: https://g.town/3Yj6rD7

Catholic sisters worldwide are compelling—if often largely silent and invisible—forces for change. Nowhere is this more true than in Africa, where they serve across many sectors but with a sharp focus on the most vulnerable populations in their communities, especially women and girls.

The Women Faith Leaders Fellowship (WFLF) will receive a total of $1.5 million in grants from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation and the Gates Foundation to support this work. The two foundations will each provide $750,000 over the course of two years.

Hosted by The Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, this initiative is designed to develop African Catholic sisters’ leadership capacities and to enhance their impact on women’s empowerment and gender equity.

Read more about this support toward leadership development for Catholic sisters: https://g.town/3SmOtf4

The Georgetown University School of Nursing (SON) has played a pivotal role in the development of the Virtual Interprofessional Education (VIPE) program, which has grown to include more than 60 universities in 30 countries.

VIPE is required for all advanced practice nursing students at Georgetown and beginning in Fall 2024, it will also be a requirement in the undergraduate nursing program.

VIPE brings together more than 200 students going over case studies to bridge the gap between different disciplines and how to address patient issues from a variety of communities. Students break into smaller groups and discuss case study and simulation, and present a solution to the entire class.

“That’s the magic of the tiny room,” says Professor Elke Zschaebitz.

Read more about the trailblazing program: https://g.town/4bPS6k

After seven years in leadership at his law school alma mater, Georgetown Law Chief Operating Officer David Mao (L’93) will be taking a new position this summer, as the 12th Librarian of the Supreme Court of the United States.

He will be the first Asian American to serve in the role.

“I really got my start in law libraries here at Georgetown,” he said. “I enjoyed working with the people in the library and the research side of things. That’s what I really liked doing.” After graduation, he worked in private practice for a few years before returning to school to earn a library science degree.

Read more about Mao's path from Georgetown to the Supreme Court: https://g.town/3Y6l5xk

Georgetown faculty members are exploring the use of artificial intelligence in health research and patient care, while also weighing new ethical questions.

AI already sifts through data archives, facial recognition, and data analytics in research settings, and many think it's well-suited for health care. With training, AI can help analyze years of medical records and do administrative tasks while also harnessing research to detect early signs of a disease. However, one main concern is human bias transferring over to AI. Health care professionals look for a way to train AI to be a tool that assists in evaluating data while producing fewer errors.

“Georgetown has world-leading experts in bioethics, clinical ethics, and ethics of AI. And we've got faculty who care about these issues across the university—in the School of Medicine, the biology department, the computer science department,” says Joel de Lara, teaching professor in philosophy at the Ethics Lab in the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, and coordinator of the Lab’s new initiative in AI, Health, and Ethics.

Read more about AI and health care: https://g.town/4cUw41m

Megan Majocha (G’24) finds herself on a dual mission. As a PhD student conducting breast cancer research, she wants to contribute to the understanding of what drives a specific type of cancer to spread. But as a scientist in the making, Majocha, who is deaf, also wants to make sure the path to becoming a researcher is smoother for kids who grew up just like her.

“Although I applied to several programs, I was interested in the NIH-Georgetown program because I love the Deaf community here in DC and because NIH has such great accessibility resources,” said Majocha. “NIH provides top-quality STEM interpreters that are easy to access on demand and are qualified to speak to the level of my research.”

With additional resources, Majocha hopes that more DHH students will pursue careers in the sciences and become the role models for younger generations that she never had growing up.

Read more about Majocha's research journey and her advocacy for more deaf and hard-of-hearing scientists: https://g.town/3Wnv8Nc

We're excited to share the latest issue of Georgetown Health Magazine!

In this issue you'll find stories about Georgetown faculty exploring the use of AI in health care, an interprofessional education program at the School of Nursing that brings together health care professionals across the world into 'tiny rooms,' and a new collaboration between Georgetown and Howard Universities offering a path toward health justice focused on the medical humanities. We also highlight two Hoyas with passion for woodworking, three stories about the trailblazing HOYA Clinic, and more.

Read these stories in the Summer 2024 issue: https://g.town/4f2F85M

Georgetown is heading to Philadelphia! From April 3-6, 2025, we'll gather in the city of brotherly love for cultural tours, intellectual programming, and cherished social events.

Let us know you're interested in attending : https://g.town/4cSrOiI

ICYMI: Nurse-bioethicist Christine Grady (N’74, G’93) and her husband, new faculty member Anthony Fauci, discuss how they live their commitment to public service, health, and each other.

Despite their extremely busy and stressful careers, the couple makes time for fun—cooking, birdwatching, fishing—a lesson learned from their three children. “They have taught us that you can work hard and play hard,” Grady says. “We have a good life and we support each other.”

Read more about their partnership for good: https://g.town/3W1oLh8

When Marissa Nissley (B’24) crossed the finish line during BellRinger Weekend 2022, she felt a mix of emotions. The 50-mile morning ride from Georgetown to Urbana, Maryland, had been exhausting, but represented an enormous personal triumph.

Nissley is legally blind, and before BellRinger, an annual cycling fundraiser for the Georgetown University’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, she had never ridden outdoors.

For Nissley, the road to BellRinger was marked by a journey of self-discovery and achievement – one that ultimately led her to the finish line last fall.

Read more about Nissley's journey: https://g.town/4bzD1DB

Happy 4th of July, Hoyas!

Thank you for supporting Georgetown through the !

This June, Hoyas from around the globe united to support current and future Hoyas as they learn, achieve, and make the world ever better.

Eric Pohlman (SFS’04)’s organization called One Acre Fund recently received The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation’s 2023 Humanitarian Prize for their work in sub-Saharan Africa.

One Acre Fund is a social enterprise that delivers tools and training to make smallholder farmers more prosperous. The organization offers a full array of services farmers need to succeed, including supplies within walking distance of their farms, financing, training, and market access.

Read more about the One Acre Fund's positive impact in rural economies: https://g.town/3XMpIwm

Time is running out and there are less than 11 hours left to join the .

Will you support our extraordinary Hoya community with a gift before midnight? https://g.town/3V1RbZn

Thousands have already given to support Georgetown before the fiscal year ends. Can we count on you to join in?

Don't miss your chance to be part of the by making your gift today: https://g.town/3V1RbZn